Google bans Zoom from employees' computers • Hacker News Board

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#161

Post by eagsalazar2 » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 9:20 PM UTC

psanford wrote: post #68

Zoom has a not very well published chrome app (intended for chromebook users). You can install it in normal chrome and it gives you a much better experience than the web version without all the issues of the desktop app. I trust zoom a lot more when it is running inside a chrome sandbox than as a native app.

I use this because I have a pixelbook and it works pretty well except for two issues: (1) minor issue that you have to click the "leave meeting" button, you can't just close the window or else it strangely relaunches and (2) major issue is that you can't change your video background which is a killer feature IMO.

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#162

Post by walrus01 » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 9:21 PM UTC

ColanR wrote: post #156

walrus01 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> God please don't make me use a non-zoom video conferencing tool! I have honestly lost track of the amount of software I've seen in the past 20 years, that people insist they absolutely must continue to use despite its well documented gaping security flaws. Because it has a better UI or makes their life very slightly more convenient in some way. Versions of Microsoft Office from the early 2000s where an entire opera…

> Because it has a better UI or makes their life very slightly more convenient in some way. I think you've missed the point completely. It's not a question of convenient UI. It's the reliability of the video call. I've tried numerous video conferencing tools, and the differentiating factor is literally just whether or not the video quality is consistently good, whether the call is dropped or not, and whether the audi…

Personal opinion, you don't need video or talking heads to have a conference. Some combination of text chat to share documents with simultaneous good quality audio is sufficient.

The challenges related to audio sucking are mostly individual end users' audio stepping on itself, such as feedback from speakerphone configurations into its own microphone. Easily solved by good quality bluetooth headsets, wired headsets, or simply using something as basic as holding an android or ios phone up to your ear.

And I do put "video quality is consistently good" in the category of "makes peoples' lives slightly more convenient". It's not essential.

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#163

Post by secabeen » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 9:21 PM UTC

magicsmoke wrote: post #137

kryogen1c wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

got a source for that claim? I work in IT and we use zoom and I have never read that in any article. not that we save anything from zoom that I need to be concerned about key storage for, but concerning nonetheless.

https://citizenlab.ca/2020/04/move-fast-roll-your-own-crypto... "The AES-128 keys, which we verified are sufficient to decrypt Zoom packets intercepted in Internet traffic, appear to be generated by Zoom servers, and in some cases, are delivered to participants in a Zoom meeting through servers in China, even when all meeting participants, and the Zoom subscriber’s company, are outside of China."

> During a test of a Zoom meeting with two users, one in the United States and one in Canada, we found that the AES-128 key for conference encryption and decryption was sent to one of the participants over TLS from a Zoom server apparently located in Beijing, 52.81.151.250. A scan shows a total of five servers in China and 68 in the United States that apparently run the same Zoom server software as the Beijing server. We suspect that keys may be distributed through these servers.

We need more details about this, ideally from Zoom, as this is not really a lot of detail, and includes a lot of "apparently", "we suspect", etc.

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#164

Post by chmod775 » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 9:21 PM UTC

ColanR wrote: post #156

walrus01 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> God please don't make me use a non-zoom video conferencing tool! I have honestly lost track of the amount of software I've seen in the past 20 years, that people insist they absolutely must continue to use despite its well documented gaping security flaws. Because it has a better UI or makes their life very slightly more convenient in some way. Versions of Microsoft Office from the early 2000s where an entire opera…

> Because it has a better UI or makes their life very slightly more convenient in some way. I think you've missed the point completely. It's not a question of convenient UI. It's the reliability of the video call. I've tried numerous video conferencing tools, and the differentiating factor is literally just whether or not the video quality is consistently good, whether the call is dropped or not, and whether the audi…

I think you didn't parse their sentence correctly.

Edit: Why the downvotes?

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#165

Post by eagsalazar2 » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 9:21 PM UTC

arrty88 wrote: post #116

Zoom's issues are fixable... unlike a hardware defect like the macbook pro keyboard and the iphone antenna that didn't work well... Zoom is clearly better than the alternatives and has my 80 year old uncle talking about it. This too shall pass.

If the issue are innocent technical screw ups, they have deep deficiencies in their dev org that are not easy to fix and could take years.

If the issues are ethical or political, they aren't ever going to get fixed.

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#166

Post by mfer » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 9:22 PM UTC

You can make joining via the web an option. No app install required. Details at https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/115005666383-Show-...

Note, works best in Chrome (likely Chromium) based on what the docs say.

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#167

Post by downerending » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 9:22 PM UTC

gnicholas wrote: post #84

crazygringo wrote: post #77

I mean, Google bans MS Office from employees' computers as well (with special-case exceptions), so they use Docs instead. Since Google has Meet (Hangouts), this isn't really surprising. It mainly sucks for when an employee (especially in sales) has a call with a client that uses Zoom and can't use Meet, because then you're forced to dial in, which just puts you at a disadvantage when everyone can see everyone's face…

> because then you're forced to dial in, which just puts you at a disadvantage when everyone can see everyone's face except yours. Can't they just participate in a call from the browser? I thought Google only banned the application/app, not usage of the service altogether.

Personally, I feel much advantaged when no one can see my face.

And in truth, I usually don't want to see anyone else's face either. Aren't there companies that forbid looking at someone for more than five seconds? Well guess what, on a video call, they're staring at you for minutes on end.

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#168

Post by softwaredoug » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 9:22 PM UTC

ColanR wrote: post #156

walrus01 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> God please don't make me use a non-zoom video conferencing tool! I have honestly lost track of the amount of software I've seen in the past 20 years, that people insist they absolutely must continue to use despite its well documented gaping security flaws. Because it has a better UI or makes their life very slightly more convenient in some way. Versions of Microsoft Office from the early 2000s where an entire opera…

> Because it has a better UI or makes their life very slightly more convenient in some way. I think you've missed the point completely. It's not a question of convenient UI. It's the reliability of the video call. I've tried numerous video conferencing tools, and the differentiating factor is literally just whether or not the video quality is consistently good, whether the call is dropped or not, and whether the audi…

Exactly. A lot of tools barely recognize webcams or desktop mics. You’re expected to dial in, which means being tied to whatever terrible audio quality the phone bridge provides for talking to 20 people.

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#169

Post by bitbckt » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 9:22 PM UTC

randunel wrote: post #152

softwaredoug wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I knew I would get downvoted. But folks seriously don’t remember the pain before Zoom. And the current pain anytime we have to use a GoToMeeting, Google Meet, Webex or other tool that barely functions. Human interaction that actually works right now is so important. And I simply have a hard time trusting another product to actually do the call reliably

I'm baffled by the amount of people claiming zoom to be painless or working, even. Don't you know any linux users? Zoom is utterly broken beyond comprehension on any variant or flavour, even when `sudo`ing everything: installer, running, audio setup (pavucontrol) to try to figure out why it refuses to work, etc

I only ever use Zoom on Linux (Ubuntu), and it works just fine every time.

My experience with Google Meet matches yours with Zoom.

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#170

Post by TulliusCicero » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 9:23 PM UTC

hacker_newz wrote: post #66

I interviewed at Google a while back for an SRE position working with the Hangouts team. My first interview was in another office and the audio in Hangouts session would not start. We ending up having to move on to the next interview. I'm not surprised even Google employees don't use it.

Hangouts Meet actually works very well overall. I work at Google and almost never have problems with it.

Hangouts Chat, on the other hand...well okay, it seems reliable enough, doesn't have that problem that old Hangouts did. Comparing the UX to Discord just makes me sad though.